Prior attempts have been made to utilize belt pressure to compress cottage cheese curd for dewatering the curd. U.S. Pat. No. 2,980,538 shows a prior art effort along this line in which a belt is trained along a rectilinear path to compress cheese curd against a wire mesh support screen. In the technique illustrated in that patent, however, the belt and wire screen are backed up by rollers and the pressure of the belt on the cheese curd varies, depending upon the thickness of the curd bed. Accordingly, any increase in the depth of the bed at the input end of the separating zone can result in excessive pressure on the curd and tends to break up the curd into smaller pieces and to otherwise damage the curd. Such excessive pressure will also close the drainage channels between the curd particles and thus inhibit drainage of whey and other intermixed water from the curd. A reduction of bed thickness at the input end of the separating zone can relieve belt pressure on the bed to reduce the squeezing action of the belt on the bed and result in inadequate dewatering of the cheese curd. U.S. Pat. No. 3,887,718 shows another technique for dewatering cottage cheese curd, by flowing the curd down an inclined rod screen. However, this technique does not adequately dewater the curd particles.